













U. S. GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS WEST OF THE 100th MERIDIAN. 


ANALYTICAL REPORT 


UPON 


INDIAN DIALECTS SPOKEN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, NE¬ 
VADA. AND ON THE LOWER COLORADO RIVER, &c., &c., 
BASED UPON VOCABULARIES COLLECTED BY THE 
EXPEDITIONS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS 
WEST OF THE 100th MERIDIAN, LIEUT. 

GEO. M. WHEELER, CORPS OF EN¬ 
GINEERS, U. S. ARMY, 

IN CHARGE, 


BY 


ALB. S. GATSCHET; 


BEING 


EXTRACT FROM 


APPENDIX JJ 


OF THE 


ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS FOR 1876. 



WASHINGTON: 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1876 . 









ERRATA. 


Page 551, line 1 from below : kk6ne, mother, instead of klione. 

Page 551, line 8 from below : pekkp6tch, to sing, instead of pekhpetch. 

Page 551, line 15 from below : twotwop&u, bows, instead of two two-pau. 
Page 552, line 15 from below : isbgomo, two, instead of iskgomo. 

Page 553, line 22 from above : tepu, salt, instead of tepe. 

Page 553, line 24 from above: n6-o, I, myself, instead of no ; ’o, I. 

Page 556, line 9 from above : t61evtckok, instead of tel6vtchok. 

Page 558, line 9 from above : tub’e, rock, stone, instead of tubd’e. 

Page 560, line 35 from above : akha-thim, (Mohave,) instead of akkathim. 
Page 560, line 35 from above : akka-thiga, (Hualapai,) instead of akkatkiga. 

(Literally : water, to drink.) 



































































































. 























































550 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


Appendix H 16. 

ANALYTICAL REPORT ON ELEVEN IDIOMS SPOKEN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, NEVADA, 

AND ON THE LOWER COLORADO RIVER, THEIR PHONETIC ELEMENTS, GRAMMATICAL 

STRUCTURE, AND MUTUAL AFFINITIES, BY ALB. S. GATSCIIET. 

New York City, April 3, 1876. 

Sir : I have the honor to submit herewith a linguistic report on the subject of Indian 
languages, of which vocabularies and sentences have been collected by members of 
your survey during the summer months of 1875. These idioms are enumerated in the 
order in which they were commented upon : the Kasud, Kauvuya, Takhtam or Serrano, 
Gaitchin, Kizh, Southern Payute, Chemehuevi, Western Payute, Mohave, Hualapai, 
and Diegeno. Four of them, the Takhtam, Chemehuevi, Western Payute, and 
Hualapai, were, up to this day, only known by name to the scientific world. 

In my report I took care to dwell mainly on such points as seemed most important 
from a linguistic point of view, and would give the best idea of the characteristics and 
peculiarities of each idiom. In two instances, where the affinity of the idioms were 
unknown or doubtful, I have tried to establish their genealogical connection by 
etymological comparisons with neighboring idioms. 

A fact not mentioned in express words in my report is, that the commonly admitted 
affinity between the Yuma and the Pima dialects does not exist at all. Except a few 
similarly sounding terms, I have been unable to find any traces pointing in the direc¬ 
tion of this theory, which was started only on account of the vicinity of both language- 
families ; and, in fact, the Yuma stock of aborigines is thoroughly independent for itself, 
and disconnected from others, as well in race as in its form of speech. 

I remain, sir, most respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Alb. S. Gatschet. 

Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, 

Corps of Engineers, in Charge. 


The territory visited in 1875 by that section of your expedition of which Dr. Oscar 
Loew was a member is inclosed by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Colorado River, 
on the east, and by the thirty-fifth parallel on the north. This wide-stretchingf 
mountainous, or rugged section of Southern California is the abode of a number o 
Indian tribes, once numerous and powerful, whose dialects Dr. Loew has undertaken 
to study during the short stays made at each of the Indian settlements. 

On examining carefully his notations, vocabularies, and collections of sentences, 
which extend over eleven idioms, I have arrived at the following classification : 

The dialects studied by Loew belong to only three distinct families of aboriginal lan¬ 
guages ; to the Santa Barbara, the Shoshonee, and the Yuma family. 

The family of Santa Barbara languages seems to extend only over a small portion of 
the coast and the interior, and a dialect of it was also spoken on Santa Cruz Island. Dr. 
Oscar Loew has studied the dialect of the Kasua, also called Cashwah or Cieneguita 
Indians, near Santa Barbara. 

The Shoshonee family extends over an enormous inland area, from the Columbia River, 
Montana, and the British Possessions, through the great interior basin, down to the 
southw estern corner of the United States. It comprises the idioms of the Bannocks 
or Pa-nasht, of the real Shoshonees or Snake Indians, the Utahs, the Pa-Utesor Payutes, 
the Kauvuyas or Cahuillos, the Comanches. Other languages, as that of the Kiowas 
and Moquis, have borrowed so extensively from the Shoshonee stock of words, that 
they appear to be dialects of that family. 

The Shoshonee dialects studied by Dr. Loew in 1875 belong to two branches. Of the 
Kauvuya branch in California, he studied the Kauvuya, the Takhtam or Serrano, the 
Gaitchin or Keclii, and the Tobikhar; of the Payute dialects, he has transmitted nota¬ 
tions from the Southern Payute and the Chemehuevi, spoken on Colorado River and 
west of it, and from the Western Payute, spoken in Mono and Inyo Counties, Cali¬ 
fornia. 



REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


551 


The Yuma family of dialects has received its denomination from the most populous 
of all the tribes usiug these idioms as their means of intercommunication. Those 
studied by Dr. Loew are the Mohave, the Hualapai and the Diegeno, and in 1873 he 
took a vocabulary of the Tonto or Gohun. The other Yuma dialects are the Cocopa, 
Maricopa, the Cosino, the Yabapai, the Comoyei, and that of the name-giving tribe, 
the Yuma, who are called Cuchans by their neighbors. The Yuma tribes live on the 
Gila aud Lower Colorado Rivers, and in the Colorado Desert. 

THE SAN'I’A BARBARA STOCK. 

KASUA. 

The full extent of the territory in which the idioms of the Santa Barbara family is 
spoken is unknown to us at present. On the north it is bordered by the idiom spoken 
at the mission of San Luis Obispo, by that of San Miguel, and prohablv also by the 
dialects of the Tatche or Telame Indians, whose intricate grammar and difficult pro¬ 
nunciation has been transmitted to us by the careful notation of Padre B. Sitjar 
(Vocabulario de la Lengua de los naturales de la Mision de San Antonio, Alta Cali¬ 
fornia, in Shea’s Linguistics, Now York, 1861). To the east and southeast it borders 
on various Kauvuya idioms to be described below, perhaps also on some Payute dia¬ 
lects ; aud when following on themap the location of these neighboring idioms, we must 
conclude that the space allotted to the Santa Barbara family is comparatively narrow. 

A vocabulary taken at Santa Barbara by Horatio Hale, of the United States Explor¬ 
ing Expedition, and reprinted in Transact, of Am. Ethnolog. Society, vol. II, page 
129, (1848,) does not, though very short and imperfect, differ essentially from Loew’s; 
and we may, therefore, conclude that the Indians seen by Hale virtually spoke a dia¬ 
lect almost identical with that now prevailing among the Kasua at Cieneguita, 3 miles 
from Santa Barbara mission. But the dialect observed on Santa Cruz Island by Padre 
Antonio F. Jimeno, aud carefully noted by him on November 4, 1856, shows much dif¬ 
ference from that of the mainland ; still the great number of roots in which both coin¬ 
cide prove them to be offshoots of substantially the same linguistic family. By a few 
examples submitted, every reader may be enabled to judge for himself of the differences 
exhibited by the three vocabularies. 



Kasua. 

Santa Barbara. 

Santa Cruz Island. 


0. Loew. 

Hale. 

Rev. Jimeno. 

my forehead 

pi khsi 


pi gstshe 

beard 

sats-us 


tchatses 

arrow 

•yit 

yah 

yhush 

sun 

£lisli 

alistuikhua 

tannum 

moon 

^vueigh 

agnai 

o-uei 

night 

salkukh 

sulkuhu 

aughemei 

leaf 

skiip 


hulucappa 

water 

6 

oh 

mihie 

meat 

sfiman 


shomun 

cold 

sakh-tatakh 

sokhton 

aktaw 


The cardinal numerals agree in all three vocabularies, the figures 1 and 5 excepted. 

A close examination of Loew’s Kasua vocabulary, and of the sentences transmitted 
by him, shows the following phonetic components : 

Vowels : u, u, o, a, a, e, i.—u is a surd vowel, equal to u in English lump, thumb. 

Diphthongs : au ; ui, oi, ei. 

Consonants: k, t, p; g, b, (b very scarce ;) kh, gli; s, sh; h, y, (the German jod,) v; 
n, m ; 1. 

The sounds is, kh, gh, sh frequently occur, especially at the end of words, d, f, r 
do not occur at all in the Kasua diaiect, whose words terminate as often in vowels 
as in consonants, and show a marked tendency to monosyllabism. 

On Santa Cruz Island, plurals are mostly formed by reduplication of the first sylla 
ble, as in twopau, bow, plural two-two-pan, bows. In Kasua we have a few faint indi 
cations of a plural being formed by the addition of a syllable: sgut -et, female breasts 
gsikhua-e, nails, skam, wings, compared with skab , feathers, but we do not discover at 
present any plurals or duals formed by reduplication. But still this sort of grammati¬ 
cal synthesis, which occupies such a prominent place in the languages of the Pacific 
coast, is observed in some Kasud. appellatives which possess a collective meaning: 
tuptu-iip, forest ; shik-sh6p-shu, ice; and in a few verbs, evidently endowed in former 
times with an iterative signification: pekhpetch, to sing; ptipt^-ulgh, to speak; ksak- 
alfilan, to cry; perhaps also, palpat, to run. Verbs frequently commence with a p, the 
transitives as well as the intrausitives. 

One of the most frequent endings forming substantives is -sh ; it occurs in knosh, 
head, nokhsh, nose, uash, tobacco-pipe, and is found in the shape of -tch in Santa Cruz 
Island. Other terminal forms are -p, -gh, etc., and the two following: 

game, brother gamute, sister 

koko, father khone, mother 


552 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


Most topographical and meteorological terms commence with s. 

Numerals follow the quinary counting system, and ordinals are formed in the follow¬ 
ing manner : isligomo two, kumusk second ; masgh three, kamaskh third. 

Possessive pronouns precede their substantives: uk pu, my hand ; u pu, thy and his 
hand. 

In the conjugation of verbs, the negative particle ke, ke-4, precedes the verb; ke 
tclnfrnon, I do not know ; the particle of the future tense is shd, and is inserted between 
the personal pronoun aud the verb. The particle of the preterit is double; inoe .... 
uash; moe pa shu-un uash, thou hast eaten. This vash also occurs in the terms for old ; 
pago-uvash ; for morning: vash-ntikhi-et, which also means to-morrow. 

Our knowledge of the Santa Barbara family of languages has been until now so re¬ 
stricted that the solution of the problem, what linguistic relations it bears to other 
American languages, could not be attempted with any hope of arriving at the truth. 
The painstaking labors of 0. Loew have now enabled us to investigate this curious 
idiom more exhaustively, aud, as nothing has yet been published concerning it, I 
intend to expatiate more fully on its affinities, and to draw all the conclusions that can 
be drawn safely from the material presently available. 

The purpose of linguistic comparisons of roots, word-stems, and words belonging to 
different languages, and showing some similarity in sound aud signification, is to find 
out whether the objects compared are borrowed, or whether they are cognate or not 
cognate. To do this with safety, the phonetic rules of these languages must have been 
reduced to a system, aud where such systems are yet wanting, as here and in all the 
Californian languages, only empirical rules can be followed. 

The Tatch6 language of the mission of San Antonio corresponds in the following 


terms: 

San Antonio. 

Kasud. 

Santa Cruz Island. 

father 

ecco 

koko 


chest, breast 

tch c uuo 

ko'-ugh 


blood 

akdta 

akhdles 

augliyoulish 

sea 

sh'kem 

shkdmin 


hare 

kdl 

(Hale: skahamihui) 
kti’n 


large, great 

katcha 

khd-akh 


small 

skitano 

tstane-ugh 


bone 

ekhakd 

ikukuie 

dog 

otcho 


wutchu 

to drink 

kdtcheme 


tchakmil 


The idiom of San Luis Obispo would, if we had a more comprehensive vocabulary 
of it, show many more affinities than the ones we subjoin here: 



San Luis Obispo. 

Kasud. 

Santa Cruz Island. 

ear 

p’ta 

’tu 

thu 

salt 

tepu 

tip 


hand 

pu 

PU 

pu, ( plur. pupu) 

man 

h’lmono 


alamu-un 

two 

eshin 


ishum 

three 

misha 


maseghe 


TheMutsun language, spoken in a large tract of territory around San Juan Bautista, 
does not show any similarities beyoud the following: 

Mutsun. Kasud. Santa Cruz Island. 

two utsgin ishgomo 

nose us ishtono 

Further to the north, the idiom of the root-digging Wintoons, who live on the 
upper Sacramento River, corresponds in the following terms: 


Wintoon. Kasud. Santa Cruz Island. 

teeth si sd (tcha-) sa 

ears tumut ’tu 

and the Klamath-Modoc in the negative particle ka-i, not; Kasud ke, ke-d; perhaps 
also in d-ush, lake; Kasud, 6-ukeke. 

The distant Pima language, spoken on the Gila River and south of it, shows striking 
analogies in two terms : 

mukat, far off, distant; Kasud, mu-ukhk. 
ni kuna, n’-kuna, my husband; Kasud, kunivu-e. 

It may be reasonably expected that the wide-stretching Shoshonee family, which has 
even sent a few offshoots down to the barren coast of the southern part of the State of 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


553 


California, has exercised a powerful influence on the Santa Barbara stock of words. A 
few may be traced, indeed, to the Kauvuya branch ; others seem related to Kiowa and 
the Pueblos, inasmuch as these two idioms are themselves largely impregnated with 
Shoshonee words. 

Takhtam, tbvuat; Kauvuya, tovtit, pine-tree; Kasua, tomolgh. 

Payute and Chemehuevi, kaiv, mountain; Kasua, khup, stone. 

Western* Payutes, kauvo, hair; Kasua, okvo-’n. 

Kiowa, koh’-, mother; Kasuti, khone. 

Moqui, tsi-i; Tehua, tchi-i, bird; Kasutt, tchnivu-e. 

Moqui, shuki, nails; Kasutf, gsiklma-e. 

Moqui, peliue, to sleep ; Kasiffi, puA 

Affinities observed between Kasua and the neighboring lCzh or Tobikhar will be 
given below. 

Santa Barbara has borrowed from Yuma the term for chief: kvatai in Diegeno, (vat6ga 
in Ilualapai,) large, great, occurs in Santa Cruz Island as ghotali, in San Antonio as 
kvatai, chief. 

gamutum, girls, in Ilualapai, turns up in Kasufi as gamute, sister. 

A few word loots occur almost in all, or at least in a large number of western 
languages, with equal or similar signification : 

Kasua, -Tu, ear ; Wintoon, turnnt, (plural:) Kiowa, ta-ati. 

Kasua, ke, ke-a, not, no ; Kizh, khai, not; Payute, gatch ; Chemeh. katch. 

Kasua, tip, salt; S. L. O., tepe ; Maya, ttiab ; occurs in the signification of rock, stone, 
as tipi, timpi, tamp, tu-ump, tub-’e in the Shoshonee dialects. 

Kasua, no ; \>, ,T, pron. pers., occurs in western languages as no, noma, nfi-fi, nu-ni, na, 
and in many other similar forms. 

From Spanish, Kasujt has borrowed the words plata, silver; kavay , horse; and the use 
of the article el, which is changed into il. 

From all these word-resemblances and real affinities, no linguist will feel justified to 
pronounce the Santa Barbara family cognate to any of the surrounding idioms, as they 
are not conclusive enough to prove this. We are sadly in want of the most important 
criterion for such researches, viz., of reliable grammars and texts; and, while these are 
want ing, all we can admit is, that the languages in question have simply borrowed from 
each other to a certain extent. There seems to exist, however, a pretty close relation 
between Kasua and the neighboring idioms of San Luis Obispo and San Antonio, 
which deserves to be followed up. 

The mission of Santa Barbara was founded on December 4, 1786, and the Indians 
settled around it were called Silpaleels or Saughpileels, Aswalthatans, &c., all of them 
using dialects slightly varying from each other. The Indians living around Santa 
Inez Mission also spoke a dialect of the Santa Barbara family, and their tribes were 
called Alahulapas, Akachumas, Jonatas, Cascellis, Ac. Spanish priests have left us a 
few liturgic texts of the Santa Barbara as well as of the Santa Inez idioms, and the 
Lord’s prayer is given in Dutlotde Mofra’s Explorations, vol. II, page 388. 

THE SHOSHONEE STOCK. 

KAUVUYA. 

This is, according to O. Loew, the correct form of the name of the tribe inhabiting 
the Cabezon or Coahuila Valley, which lies between the San Bernardino range and the 
San Jacinto Mountains. They are variously called Caw6os, Cavios, Kavayos, and by 
Mexicans Coahuila, Cahuillos. Their language, combined with that of the neighbor¬ 
ing Takhtam, Serranos or Mountaineeis, and the dialects of a few coast tribes, forms 
the Kauvuya branch of the Shoshonee family of languages. 

Vow els: u, o, a, ii, e, i (pronounced as in Italian.) 

Diphthongs: an, in ; ui, ai; vowels are not nasalized. 

Consonants : k, t, p ; g, b, (b scarce,) kh ; s, sh, h, y, (the German jod,) v; n, m ; 1. The 
sounds d, f, r are wanting entirely ; kh is the rough guttural sound of k in the Spanish 
ojo, dejar. 

Combinations of consonants like bs, tch, khk, ksh, are frequently observed. 

Kauvuya syllables are generally built up of the combinations: consonant-f- vowel, 
or consonant -j- vowel -f- consonant. 

Syllables made up of one vowel only are not frequent, though the Kauvuyas, as most 
other Indian tribes, like to drawl out simple vowels by doubling, repeating, or varying 
them. Thus pern (these) becomes pe-em ; kil (not) ki-il, &c. 

Case-inflection is formed here, as elsewhere, by adding to nouns postpositions as suf¬ 
fixes: pal, watei'; pJ-aga, in the water; tumuet, in Serrano, mountain; tamikan, in 
Kauvuya, on the mountain. A possessive case does not appear from the sentences given. 
The objective or accusative case does not differ from the nominative, but is generally 
placed after the verb, except in interrogative sentences. 

The almost universal termination for the plural of nouns is um, which, in a few in¬ 
stances, diverges into -em, -im, (and -on?) The ending -sh seems to form collective appel- 


554 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


latives. When assuming the termination of the plural, many nouns insert a new vowel 
or alter the vowel of the last syllable into a diphthong or another vowel, thus pro¬ 
ducing a change similar to the Umlaut in German, and to the irregular English plurals 
in goose, geese ; louse, lice ; man, men; cow, kine. We subjoin some instances of Kau- 
vuva plurals: 


turtle 

ayil 

ayil u m 

fly 

a-avat 

ava-atum 

bird 

vigitmol 

vigitmoilum 

many 

mete-uet 

mete-etchim 

hare 

ta'vut 

tavutim 

boy 

tiat 

tigitum 

fish 

ki-ul 

kiulem 


Adjectives assume the plural form as well as substantives do, even when used as 
predicates or connected with a noun. 

Derivatives are formed from roots or stems by the addition of the following termi¬ 
nations: 

-at, -it, -ot: sogat, deer; alvat, crow; 

panyit, egg ; vuyit, grasshopper ; 
huminot, meat. 

-uet (in Gaitohin, -ut:) pokauet, snake, lizard; isuet, wolf. 

-il: auvil, blood; ingil, salt; nietchil, woman; mauyil, moon. 

-mol: nauisbmol, girl; tapa-amol, cup; nakhtiumol, old. 

-ish : kauvish, rock, stone. 

-liu : ne gi, my house; ne giliu, my friend. 

In Kauvuya, the numerals strictly follow the quinary counting-system, which they 
do not in the cognate idioms of the Serranos and Gaitchins. 

The terms for parts of the human frame and for consanguinity always prefix the 
possessive “mine,” whose form is determined by the quality of the initial syllable of 
the following noun, thus appearing under the variable shapes of tv -, na, ne, ni, no, nu. 

The interrogative pronoun and particle is mi-, as appears from the subjoined list of 
pronouns and adverbs, to which mi- is prefixed : 

mi, what? bakhe, who? mi keats, how many? mi p£-akb ,when? mi vakh , where? mi 
ikhone, why? mi vakha, wherefrom? whence? mi vikin, whereto ? mi ydkhou, how? 

From Loew”s Kauvuya sentences, I add a few scraps, t<> the purpose of showing the 
mode of conjugating verbs : 

te, to see ; men t^okve, I see ; pin teokval, I hare seen you; pe tdokval. you hare seen ; 
t6-e, look here! gopka, to sleep; hen gopka, I shall sleep ; hen gopkale, lie gopkalet, I 
have slept; kilia hen gopkale, / have not slept. 

-al forms verbal adjectives nearly equivalent to our participles in -ing : in ni aukal 
mukha-a, I hare rheumatism ; literally : “ this I having sickness ”. 

pe, pen,pin is prefixed to all transitive or active verbs, and seems to point out a re¬ 
lation of the subject to the outside world ; hen is prefixed to all intransitive and re¬ 
flective verbs, and shows a relation of the verb to its subject only, as we observe also 
in the Greek medium and many Latin deponentia; hen may therefore properly be in¬ 
terpreted by himself, herself, oneself. 

Verbs also assume the plural endings of the nouns: nitchika, T go ; nitchi-im, we go. 

Of the Kauvuya dialect, Mr. Loew has transmitted a considerable amount of words 
and sentences. In taking his notes, he closely followed, in this dialect, as well as in all 
the others, the graphic method recommended by Turner and Hale, who by their scien¬ 
tific studies were prompted to adopt the Italian pronunciation for most of the letters 
representing the sounds of their phonetic systems. 

TAKHTAM * 

This is the general name by which the Indians inhabiting the hills around San Ber¬ 
nardino, Cal., call themselves, and it may be properly used to designate their dialect 
also. Takhtam simply means men, being the plural form of takht, man. This word 
occurs in many Shoshonee languages, and sometimes not only signifies man, but also 
young man. The Spanish-speaking population calls the Takhtam Serranos or Mountain¬ 
eers,a term frequently used in Mexico to distinguish also dialects of the hill regions 
from cognate ones of the adjacent plains, and derived from sierra, mountain-range. 

The Takhtam dialect seems to differ from Kauvuya more in the dictionary than in 
the grammatical forms. It has the same vowels and does not nasalize them, but as for 
consonants it differs from it in the following peculiarities: 

R occurs in Takhtam as w T ell as in Gaitchin, but less frequently ; / only in vu-ung- 
aiftch, rain, which could be rendered just as well by vu-ungaivtch. I find d only in 
hamd, grass, as a terminal sound, and h is only found w T hen commencing words. Their 
sh is pronounced down in the throat; the deep guttural kh also occurs here. We find 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


555 


combinations of consonants like kv, mk, ts, tch, tchk, occurring more or less frequently. 
The accent scarcely ever rests on the terminal syllable of a word. 

The endings of the plural form of nouns are-bn, -am, as in Kauvuya, but -uni does not 
occur here. Cases are formed by suffixing post-positions to substantives: kitch, house; 
katchdka, in the house. Many adjectives are composed with the prefix : aknp-, akopo-, 
kopin-, meaning plurality or abundance, (much, many.) Adjectives of colors are formed 
by means of the suffix -anka, -inka, -inkum, &c. In derivative nouns, the following 
terminals are most frequently observed ; -tch being the most common of all, and in fact 
a substitute for the definite article the: 

-tch: kitch, house ; in Kauvuya, gish. 

toknvtch, sky ; in Kauvuya, tokovas. 
ii-aetch, good; in Kauvuya, ^tsa-e. 

-at: tamyat, sun ; kotchat, wood. 

-et: tumuet, rock ; mo-umet, sea. 

-it: shuvuit, wind. 

-ut: honut, hear; in Kauvuya, hunuet. 

In most verbs, we observe the ending -kin, -kain, which corresponds to the -ka, and 
probably also to the -kal in Kauvuya verbs, -al alternating with -ain. 

GAITCHIN. 

This dialect of the Kauvuya branch of Shoshonee languages is spoken on the coast 
of the Pacific Ocean at San Juan Capistrano and at San Luis Rev, and, according to 
Loew’s statements, at some distance from the coast at Pala, Temecula and, environs. 
We possess two old vocabularies taken at San Juan Capistrano from Indians who called 
themselves Akatchma, said to mean “pyramid hill,” or “ ant hill,” and gave to their 
dialect the appellation of Netela, evidently n6 tale, no tale, my speech, my language. 

We have also a few words collected from the San Luisenos Indians, or aborigines 
settled around San Luis Rey de Francia Mission, which slightly differ from Loew’s 
Gaitchin words, and were said to belong to the Kechi language. Gaitchiu, Kechi is 
derived from gitch, kitch house, or settlement, and consequently identical with “Kizh.” 

O. Loew obtained his words and sentences from an Indian living near San Juan 
Capistrano Mission, but hailing from San Luis Rey. 

Vowels and diphthongs are the same as in Kauvuya and Takhtam. Of consonants, d 
and / do not occur at all, r is not found very often and is alternating with l ; & is found 
only in bi-it, younger sister. Words generally show consonantal endings, those in k , 
l, t, tch, being the iqost common of all. 

The accent generally rests on the penultima, though it is often laid on the last sylla¬ 
ble of the word-stem, as in magdt, large, great , vu6, two , vos &,four. 

In substantives and adjectives, the plural ends in -um, (in San J. Cap. in -um,-om, 
-om,-am ,) and the verb also assumes a plural form, -otum,-von. 

Adjectives do not drop their plural endings when joined to a noun in the plural. 

Nouns are inflected by postpositions in the same manner as in the cognate dialects 
of the Kauvuya branch: kauitch, mountain; kauvi-nga, in the mountain; kauvi-ik, on 
the mountain; mout. sea; mom-nga ,in the sea; pushun-nga, inside; pesd-onga, out doors. 

Further case-inflections appear in the endings -am and -ov of the following sentences: 
Gitcham gumuk, on the other side of house ; na-d-atch auvolov huikhnunga, the horse is 
larger Ilian the dog; gitch meaning house, and anal dog. 

Terminals for derivative nouns are as follows: -itch (the most frequent): yumi-itch, 
forest; vunti-itch, river, &c., and in some adjectives designating colors, iu nangvitch, 
deaf, i^c. 

-al: hungal, wind; 6khal, earth. 

-at: toinat, lightning. 

-ut: shovo-ut, winter ; vokh^-ut, frog. 

-mol, -mul: amayomol ,young; kav^-amal, cup; olu-umul, small; titchmol, butterfly. 

,-ant,-ont: vuymkhant, heavy; tchorokhont, round. 

-ev,-ov: emengev, ripe; pol6-ov, costly. 

A gradation of the adjective is effected by adding the terms more and very, most; 
mag^t, great; magat huikhnunga, greater; vam huikhnunga mag&t, greatest, and in 
addition to this the gradation is made more apparent by a circumscriptive sentence. 

The numeralsexhibit elements of the quaternary counting-system, (2x2=4 ; 4x^—8,) 
the other figures resting on the quinary method of numeration. 

The interrogative particle is mi, me. 


556 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


The subject-pronoun is prefixed to the stem of the verb; the negative particle kai 
is inserted before the verb or stands at the head of the sentence. 

The particles of the preterit tense are: omu . . . gat, or auiu . . . gat; those of the/w- 
ture: ivi . . . lot, or ati-i . . . let. 


more, to kill: non amo moregat, I have killed. 

non ivi morelot, I shall kill. 
non kai moregat, I have not killed. 
teldvua, to see: teldvuak, to see something (k sign of object). 

teldvtchok, to talk to somebody, (viz. to see somebody.) 

Father Boscana has left an interesting sketch of the Capistrano Indians, their his¬ 
tory, customs, manners, and mythology, in his Chinigchinich, or “ World-Maker.” Rob¬ 
inson translated it from the Spanish, and published it as an appendix to his “Life 
in California,” 12mo, New York, 1846. The only text of the Gaitchiu language given by 
him is an Indian popular song of five lines, which has been republished in the elaborate 
treatise of Professor Buschmaun, “Traces of the Aztec Language,” on page 546. The 
Lord’s Prayer was transmitted by the explorer Dnflot de Mofras in 1842 with that of 
the Kizh. 


KIZH. 

Of this dialect we possess three vocabularies: that of Dr. Coulter , (1841 ;) of the 
Exploring Expedition, collected by H. Hale and published in 1846 ; and that of Osc. 
Loew, (1875.) All three were taken at the mission of San Gabriel; but the Lord’s 
Prayer, taken by Mofras, II, 393-4, at San Fernando, proves that various sub-dialects 
of Kizh are spoken through the whole vicinity of Los Angeles. Neither the term Kizh 
nor Netela are known on the spot to designate any particular language or tribe, kizh 
meaning simply houses. The remnants of the once populous tribes or bands settled 
around San Gabriel Mission call themselves Tobikhars, (meaning settlers, from toba, 
to sit, tobakhard, to stand in Kizh) and speak almost universally Spanish. Having 
adopted the name Gaitchiu for the Southern coast dialect, we may just as well use 
Kizh, which has the same signification of “ houses ” as a name for the northern twin- 
idiom. 

At first sight, Kizh seems to differ considerably from Gaitchiu, Takhtam, and Kau 
vuya; but a careful comparison of all the vocabularies now available shows that a rea" 
affinity exists between the four. The following terms are rendered by the same radica^ 
iu all the four idioms: father, mother, ear, nose, teeth, arm and hand, heart, arrow* 
house, heaven, sun, moon, star, water, mountain, bear, fish; I, thou, to drink; one, 
two, three, four. Kizh agrees at least with two of these dialects iu the following im¬ 
portant terms: mouth, breast, sea, salt, stone, deer, wolf, fox, rattlesnake, to eat, to 
kill; and in many of them a close coincidence is observed between Kizh and the 
Northern Shoshonee dialects on Columbia River and in Montana, the Utah, Payute, 
Moqui, Comanche, and even the Kiowa. Some words not found in the southern 
branches occur only in Kizh and the Northern Shoshouee. 

It might be with propriety objected to the statement that Kizh is a Shoshonee idiom, the 
circumstance that the Kizh grammar differs widely from that of the Shoshonee languages; 
that these latter do not employ reduplication of the first syllable as a means of gram¬ 
matical synthesis; that they lack the sound r, or employ it very rarely; that their 
possessive pronoun mine is na, ni, nu, and not a, as in Kizh, and that they do not 
generally place it before the parts of the human body or the degrees of consanguinity. 

To these objections we reply as follows: The a iu Kizh is nothing else but the na 
with apheresis of the initial n, and this pronoun sounds ni in Kizh before the terms of 
consanguinity. The northern Shoshouees really do prefix the mine to the terms of the 
human limbs and to father, mother, &c. The scarcity of the r in other idioms proves 
nothing, since they employ other sounds iu its stead, and Kizh lacks l almost entirely. 
Reduplication also occurs iu Shoshonee dialects, though not generally to render the 
idea of plurality as in Kizh. We quote the following instances of reduplication from 
the Kauvuya branch: 

In Kauvuya: yuyuma, cold; sasaymol, duck; vdvoukou, rain. 

In Takhtam: votchevuetch, old. 

In Southern Payute: mobits ,fool; momobits, fools. 

In Gaitchiu : magdt, great, plural mamt, probably contracted from mamagat. 

It is true that the reduplicative plural is a peculiar feature of the languages spoken 
along the Pacific coast of North America, and it occurs in this quality in Selish, 
Klamath, Island of Santa Cruz, and probably in many other Californian idioms ; also in 
Pima, Aztec, Tarahumara, and in Tepeguana. 

In the elements of verbal inflection, numerals, and iu the degrees of consanguinity, 
Kizh agrees closely with Gaitchiu, to which it bears the closest resemblance of all the 
Kauvuya dialects. But what languages have furnished to Kizh its words not tra¬ 
ceable in the other Shoshonee dialects? 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


557 


Many of them must be, nevertheless, of Shoshouee origin, for we are yet very far 
from being acquainted with all the Shoshonee words, word-stems, and radicals. 

For the others, it may be safely asserted that Kizh did not borrow to any extent from 
the Yuma family. From the neighboring family of Santa Barbara it probably borrowed 
the extensive use of the reduplicative plural, a grammatical figure not inherent to 
the Kauvuya family, and an affinity is traceable only in the following words: 

Kizh. KasuA 

blood khain akholes 

fox khatir khus 

San Antonio coincides with Kizh in : 

Kizh, vosh 6 , dog; S. A., dtcho, otch; yait, alive ; S. A., (kakhoo-) yota. 

Kizh agrees with other Western idioms in : 

uiti, boy ; Wiutoon, u 6 ta, man; iffita-ela, boy. 
tchabo, ; on Sacramento R., 5 a, sa ’, Maya, kaak. 
tarn, teeth ; Pima, tatami. 

(pa-) vahe, six; Maya, u^c, (seven, uuc ; eight, naxab.) 
tota, stone; Pima, hotie, hota ; Heve, tet, Azt., tetl. 
yu-uit, great; Taos, ya-d. 

The affinities of Kizh and Gaitcliin to Aztec, and to four languages spoken in the 
northern Mexican provinces, have been pointed out by Prof. J. C. E. Buschmann in a 
very erudite paper, entitled “ Die Sprachen Kizh und Netela.” We refer to the words 
demonstrated by him to be cognate with Aztec, and only present the subsequent ones 


Kizh. 

otso-o, cold 
mahar, five 
mukanakh, to kill 
pukitcha, to steal 
(pau-) enatch, to cry 


Aztec. 

ytztic, (Shosh., utshuin) 

macuilli 

macmiqui 

itchtequi 

(t-) euotza 


Buschmann seems willing to admit that the noun-endings -t, -ta, -te, -ti, -ts, -tch, in 
Kizh, replace or closely correspond to the Aztec terminals -tl, -tli, and shows four ways 
of forming plurals in Kizh: 

( 1 ) by reduplicating the initial syllable, as in haikh, mountain, pi. hahaikh ; tchinuit 
small, pi. tchitchinui; (2) by syncope; (3) by affixing -not, —rot; and (4) by affixing 
the Gaitchiu terminal -om, -om. 

Ordinals differ somewhat from cardinals. 

The particle of the future tense -on is suffixed to the verb; that of the preterit, 
yamo-, prefixed to it. 

The language of this tribe does not sound unharmoniously to the ear, and shows a 
vigorous, energetic constitution in its words and sentences. 


PAYUTE BRANCH. 


Passing from the Kauvuya branch to the Payute branch of Shoshonee languages, we 
are struck, when first glancing over Loew’s very complete vocabularies, with the pre¬ 
ponderance of deep-sounding vowels, as 0 , u, and a, over the high-pitched e, i; and 0 , 
u, often assume a darker shade by being pronounced surd, (ii, o,) or by being nasalized, 
(a, o, u, u.) This pronunciation of the three vowels is also peculiar to the Utah, and oc¬ 
curs in many of the Pueblo idioms of New Mexico. In addition to this, we perceive in 
the Payute dialects a frequent occurrence of a vocalic r, marked r, and in the dialect 
of Mono and Inyo Counties, Cal., a buzzing s, marked s. 

The three dialects studied by Loew almost entirely lack the sounds of dand/; b 
and v occur frequently in word-terminals, and there seem to be interchangeable. 

Payute is evidently a sister 1 mguage of Utah, and bears close relationship to it. It 
extends over the whole of Nevada and parts of the adjacent States and Territories. 

O. Loew has taken words and sentences of the Southern Payutes on the Colorado 
River, of the Chemehnevis settled on a reserve on the western shore of Colorado River, 
and of the Western Payutes roaming in Mono and Inyo Counties, California. 

Although these three do not differ widely among themselves, greater discrepancies 
will be probably observed between these Southern and the Northern dialects of Nevada, 
when we will be in possession of linguistic materials from these parts. 

In order to exhibit more plainly the dialectic differences between the Southern and 
Western Payute, the Chemehuevi, ai d the Uintali-Utah, I subjoin a comparative table 
of words. 


558 REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 



Southern Payute. 

Chemehuevi. 

Western Payute. 

Uintah-Utah. 

body 

nd-uav 

nd-uan 

nu-um 

ningovh 

teeth 

tfivuamb 

tauvamb 

tava 

taua 

hand 

mo-om 

mu-um 

vu-ela 

mu 

bone 

a -6 y 

6-oan 

oho 


bow 

atch 

atch 

<5de 

ti-ats 

snow 

ne-ovav 

novab 

nevave 

nevavai 

fire 

kun 

ku-un, kun 

kosh 

k’-un 

rock, stone, 

tump 

tu-urnp, tump 

tubd’e 

timb 

fly 

mubitch 

mobitch 

m-uivi 

mupu 

who ? 

hangi 

hangti 

hagd 

hang 

yes ! 

e-e 

u-u 

hu-u 

u-vay 

no ! 

gatch 

katch 

karfi-u 

kats 

to eat 

tokai 

tokara 

tugate 

teke 


For want of space, I have to refrain from extending this table over all the other Sho- 
shonee languages and dialects. To do this would certainly be very instructive and 
also furnish materials from which to derive phonetic laws for the whole Shoshone© 
family. 

SOUTHERN PAYUTES. 

The words and sentences given by O. Loew were gathered from Indians living at 
the little mining town of YVaupah, west of Colorado River, Nevada, compared in Cot¬ 
tonwood Island and at Stone’s Ferry, both settlements being located on Colorado River. 
Some more words were added on the last-mentioned place. 

Vowels : u, u, o, a, e, i. 

Nasalized vowels : a, e, 0, u. 

Diphthongs: au ; i, ei, ui. 

Consonants: k, t, p; g, d, (occurs only in pa-ubd, blood,) b; kh; s, sh ; h, y, (the Ger¬ 
man j,) v ; ng, n, m ; r, r. 1 and f do not occur. 

In words having no derivative ending, the accent mostly rests on the penultima; 
and, in words provided with such a termination, it commonly rests on the syllable pre 
ceding it. 

In this idiom, as in Kizh, we notice several modes of forming the plural of nouns, 
and singularly enough even cardinal numbers show a singular and a plural form. 

This curious circumstance might be explained through the law of analogy; but 
probably the plural of the numeral has here a distributive meaning, like quini, deni , in 
Latin. 

Plurals in -atum: avan, many, much, ava -atum. 

in -im, -am: pa-dtsiv, louse, pa-dtsivim; bun, rat, hunain. 
in-vun,-um: tukibun, friend ; tukibuvun, pay-ay, three, pa-ayum. 
in -uts: narAvungg, sheep, nardvuuguts. 

in -ara: hivinump, cup, hivinumpara; sovib, cottonwood-tree, sovibara. 

All these various endings can be easily reduced to three original forms: -atum, (or 
- itum ); -uts (or -its) ; -aya. 

The first of them changes into -itum,-otum, etc., the penultima beiug always short and 
indistinctly uttered; or it collapses, by dropping the-at, -it, into -am, -im, -om, -un, etc. 
The second terminal, -uts, probably corresponds to the collective -tch in Kizh and 
Gaitehin ; the third, -ara, evidently is the adjective avan, many, much, having altered its 
pronunciation into ava, aua, ara. 

When adjectives and numerals are joined to substantives expressing inanimate 
objects, they are liable to drop their plural endings. No separate form exists for ordinal 
numbers. 

The most frequent derivative termination in nouns is: -ab, probably equivalent to 
-ob and -ub; pa-uyab, mud; kanab, large willow; movitob, marines; angtisi -urub, leather 
strap. Other endings are: 

-ib, -iv : anokuib, a kind of squash ; pigiv, bread. 

-av : haiko-otsav. bottle, and in many parts of the human frame. 

-at: mdbuat, fool. 

-an : puruan, skin ; vuytsan, calf of leg. 

-ash, -ats, -atch : shuyush, one ; tauats, man ; na-ubitch, wet. 

-ump: a rump, tongue; po-onump, lead-pencil. 

In nouns, a case-inflection is observed as in the Ivauvuya dialects: p’-a, water ; pa-upa, 
in the water; kaiv, mountain; kaiv-umbay, on the mountain. 

The subject-pronoun prefixed to the verb is frequently omitted when there is no 
doubt of the meaning of the sentence. 

Negative sentences begin with the negative particle, and positive (not interrogative) 
sentences generally with the predicate, and. when the subject is not expressed, with 
the object: pa-ai avan hiviga, I hare drunk much water. 

Tenses are formed after the following model: nuni tokay, I eat; nuni tokavan, I 
hare eaten; katcbun tokayan, I have not eaten; nuni tekavan, I shall eat; katchun 
teka-vau-va, I shall not eat. 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


559 


CHEMEHUEVI. 

This Payute sub-dialect does not differ half as much from the Southern Payute than 
Spanish does from Portuguese, and many of the differences observed in Loew’s vocab¬ 
ularies between the two seem to depend only on the individual pronunciation of the 
Indians from whom he obtained his information. Cliemehuevi has frequently p and 
tch, where S. P. has b and ts. Like the Southern Payute s, the Chemehuevis do not 
prefix the possessive mine to the degrees of consanguinity and the parts of the human 
body as the Western Payutes do, who abbreviate the ni into i. 

The terms for numerals, colors, man’s limbs, and in fact the great majority of all the 
terms noted by Loew, radically agree in b >th dialects, and from this we can infer that 
their grammatical structure may be of the same type also, though no sentences of the 
Chemehuevi are at present submitted for examination. 

WESTERN PAYUTES. 

The dialect spoken in the extensive mountain-tracts of Mono and Inyo Counties,. 
California, and some adjacent parts of Nevada , diverges considerably from the South¬ 
ern Payute, and seems to have retained many terms in common with the neighboring 
idiom of the Western Shoshouees or Snake Indians. The personal appearance of the 
Western Payutes, especially their features, vividly recall to our mind the Mongolian 
type of mankind. Their deportment does not offend our ideas of propriety, and their 
faces bear a friendly, often intelligent, expression. Some of the aborigines are earn¬ 
ing wages from American settlers, but the majority lead a wretched life by feeding on 
pine-nuts, roots, worms, and lizards. 

Mr. Loew collected the main part of his linguistic material in Benton, Mono 
County. The sentences and a few terms were taken iu Aurora, a little mining town 
of Inyo County, on the borders of California and Nevada. A few dialectic variations 
can be traced between the idioms of both places. 

Vow r els: u, u, o, a, e, i. 

Nasalized vowels : a, e, u. 

Diphthongs : an ; ai, oi, ui. 

Consonants: k, t, p ; g, b ; s, s, (or ss,) sh ; h, y, (the German j,) v; n, m ; r, r. 

Western Payute, therefore, lacks the consonantal sounds of /, th, (which occurs in 
Mohave,) Tch, l; and d may be said to be wanting also, for it occurs o tly iu dde, bow. 

Syllables generally begin with consonants, but terminate as often in vowels as 
in cousonants. v seems to alternate with b and p and ts, tch of the southern dialects 
often turns up as r in Western Payute. 

Of derivative endings of nouns, the most frequent is -ve, as in Zufii: toy^ve, 
mountain ; ovave, salt ; v6ve, wood. Other terminations are : 

-ut: nngut, goose’, tuna-agut, great spirit. 

-ib : tuvib, sand ; toshumib, midnight. 

-sh : ag&sh, feathers ; agish, grasshopper. 

Western Payute must have dropped long ago the plural ending observed in almost 
all the Shoshouee languages, (-um or -im,-dm ;) pagve, fish ; vabai pagve, two fish. In 
a few words, however, we notice that plural forms have been retained, as in num, 
man ; plural, nd-ana ; and the ending -im, -itim re-appears in the plural forms of verbs, 
as in koiuu-itim, to hunt —said of many persons hunting, or of mauy animals hunted. 

The names for the colors end in -nagite, except that of yellow, which exhibits the 
contracted form oahanite. 

The interrogative pronouns and particles are as follows : 

hayo-o, what f 

hiuo-oy, hino-oytu : how many f 

handgue, whence! wherefrom ? hiu6-ue, when ? o-u hu-ut, whereto ? 

Tenses and negative sentences are formed in this manner : 

To drink, hivlt: I shall drink, hivl nil. 

I have drunk, hivlvai nil. 

I have not drunk, garo-o nu hivl. 

To sleep, uvuit: I have slept, (already,) nu vi tushu haplyu. 

I shall sleep, mi-asha havl. 

Many transitive and intransitive verbs end in -at (or -it, -ut): yard hat, to speak , talk r 
in the Aurora subdialect: yaru-a ; navagiat, to swim; kvatohat, to fall; voagit, to work; 
huvi- -erut, to sing; in the Benton subdialect the majority of all verbs seems to have 
this termination, which in the plural form is increased by -im. From the lengthy tri¬ 
syllabic or quadrisyllabic forms of most verbs we may readily infer that they are com¬ 
pounds of the root, with some pronominal affixes, nouns or fragments of nouns. 

THE YUMA STOCK. 

Owing to the patient labors of Dr. Loew, the Yuma group in its totality of dialects 
will become one of the best known of all the language-families of Western North 
America when the collections of words and sentences made by him will be made 


560 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


public. Loew has studied four of its dialects, while before him only the Mohave and 
the Yuma proper, (or Yuma-Cuclian, as I call it-,) were known to a certain extent, and 
a few vocables only had been published of the Diegefio (Comoyei) and Maricopa. (See 
Reports on Pacific Railroad, vol. III.) 

The dialects which constitute the Yuma family of languages are spoken east and 
west of the Lower Colorado and on Gila River. The Yuma family has kept itself 
pretty independent from extraneous influence, for it did adopt only a very few terms, 
if any, from the neighboring Santa Barbara, Kauvuya, Paynte, Pueblo, Apache, Pima, 
from Opata, and other Sonora dialects. 

Owing to the prevalence of the vocalic element, Yuma is sonorous and not unpleas¬ 
ant to ears unaccustomed to aboriginal speech. Though words often end in consonants, 
vocalic terminations prevail in initial syllables' and in syllables of the middle part ot 
the word. The elements of which Yuma syllables are mainly made up are a consonant 
followed by a vowel. The counting system is the quinary one, and the numbers iroin 
six to ten disagree considerably in the different dialects. 

The words of the six dialects of which we have the vocabularies illustrate and 
explain each other mutually, and many forms can be iruly understood only by refer¬ 
ring to a parallel from another dialect. To show their phonetic differences, the best 
means will be to quote some terms coinciding in their radicals. 



Mohave. 

Hualapai. 

Diegefio. 

Cuchan. 

Ton to. 

Maricopa. 

nose 

ihu 

yaiya 

khu 

ihds 

hu 

yehe-utche 

beard 

hand 

yavume 

yavenime-e 

sal 

alemfi 

i-salgh 

yabo-lne 

i-salt-cke 

yauimi 
sh ft la 

yebomits 

arrow 

knife 

ipfi 

akhkvue 

apfi-a 

kva-a 

bal 

akhgoft 

n'yepfi 

apa 

akvft 


sun 

any ft 

inyfi-a 

inyfi 

n'yatcli 

nya 

n'yats 

fire 

ft-an a 

tuga 

a-ua 

aa-w6 

ho-o 

fi-hutch 

water 

akha 

alifi-a 

akha 

ahft 

aha 


earth 

am at a 

mat 

mat 

omut 

mata 


stone 

avt 

uvi 

u-uil 

ovl 

vui 


black 

vanilgh 

nifigh 

nilgh 

n’yulk 

nya 


large 

vatfi-im 

vatfiga 

kvatai 

otaike 

vete 

betatchi 

I 

inie-pa 

any ft-a 

inyau 

n'yat 

nya-a 

in y fits 

two 

havik 

hovak 

oak 

havik 

uake 


to drink 

akhathim 

akhathiga 

kisi 

hasue 

hasi 



We now turn our attention to the Mohave dialect, of which about 120 sentences and 
over 400 w ords were transmitted by Dr. O. Loew. 


MOHAVE. 

The individuals using this dialect are at present located upon two reservations. About 
1,540 Mohaves, 600 Hualapais, 540 Chemehuevis, 180 Cocopas, and as many Kauvuyas 
are tilling the ground in the Colorado River agency on the eastern shore of the river ; 
and about 400 Mojaves were removed in 1875, with 678 Tontos and 500 Cuchaus from 
Camp Verde to the White Mountain reserve on the Gila River. They are a peaceably 
disposed, laborious set of Indians, who seem to have forgotten the fierce wars formerly 
waged by them against their aggressive neighbors. They tattoo the whole of their 
body in various colors. Their name is also written Mahhaos, Mo-6av, in Spanish Mo¬ 
javes. 

They do not nasalize or alter their vowels , which are to the number of live, u, o, a, e, 
i, and five diphthongs : an ; ai, ei, ui, oi. They possess all our consonants except /, and 
though they have a very complete series of them, they rarely double them. The series 
is as follows: 



Not aspirated. 

Aspirated. 

Spirants. 

Nasals. 

It and l sounds. 

Gutturals : 

k,g 

kh,gh 

h 

ng 


Palatals : 

tell 

e, y 


Linguals: 



sh 


d r> i 

Dentals : 

t, d 

th 

s 

n 


Labials : 

lb b 


V 

m 



Heterogeneous vowels often meet, and produce hiatus : fi-uva, tobacco ; kahu-eilk, etc 
r and d seldom occur. No other consonants can end a word but the following : -g, -gh 
-Tc, -l, -m, —n , ~p. 

We find in this dialect the following combinations of consonants: bk , Ik, tk, thk, 
mk, rk, vk, Ig, shg, thp, gv, nqv, ngb, mb, all of which are of easy pronunciation. 

The accent generally rests on the final syllable of the w r ord-stem ; inflective termiu- 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 561 

ations usually are not accentuated. In many terms, the accentuation is dubious, but 
generally rests on the same syllable through all the dialects. 

Of derivative endings, the most frequent for substantives is -a, preceded by a con¬ 
sonant, (-fa, -ya etc.;) for instance, vu-uga, thunder; asha, bird ; vayaniya, trine; 
avuy d, door ; amata, earth; liuksara, wolf, -k is also very frequent. 

-ik, -Ik very frequently terminate adjectives; as, tanvauik, low; kibilk, hot; nakvi- 
mulk, rich. Another termination is -urn, which occurs very often: ara-druui, deep ; 
aku-utchum, ripe. 

Substantives do not assume any sign of the plural, and it is doubtful whether ad¬ 
jectives and pronouns do; as, inyep ido namasavum, my teeth are white; makatitum, 
who, which (pi.); ataik, much, (sing.); ataim, many (plur.) shows a form probably con¬ 
tracted from ataikum. Adjectives and numerals are placed after the noun which they 
qualify. 

A gradation of the adjective is effected by a circumscriptive sentence or by the par¬ 
ticles tdhana, nimka-amk , more; the superlative repeats the tahana or tahan twice or 
three times. 

In regard to case-inflection, no distinct mark exists for the possessive and dative 
case except the position of the words. The accusative is rendered by prefixing -entch 
to the direct object of the sentence, and by placing this object between the subject 
of the sentence and the transitive verb. Relations expressed by our prepositions are 
rendered by postpositions: ava liuva aga, in the house; avd matarelgh, outside of the house. 

The pronoun entch, intch, abbreviated itchi, tchi,-tch, is a demonstrative, and in com¬ 
pound nouns and verbs means somebody or somewhat, something. Substantives com¬ 
posed with it are itchi-halyiiluve, stove , oven , (viz. something-smoking ;) itch-auyo-ora- 
ahaga, inkstand, (viz. somewhat-writing-liquid;) Verbs: tcha-koark, to speak, verbally 
“something-say ; ” tchi-kiauk, to bite, verbally “ something bite.” This element is one 
of the most frequently occurring parts of Mohave speech, and also serves to form accu¬ 
satives, as mentioned above, and in this quality means him, her, it, them. As the defi¬ 
nite article it is frequently suffixed to nouns, as in ip d, man ; ipfitch, certain man just 
spoken of ; gutch, what f contracted from ka-entch, literally, what-thing, or what-it ? 

There are three other demonstrative pronouns which are used in similar combina¬ 
tions : ti, inya, and pa. 

Personal object-pronouns are suffixed to the verb ; subject-pronouns are frequently 
omitted when there is no doubt about the meaning of the sentence. 

The elements of verbal inflection are as follows : 

lydma, / go ; matchhn iyema, thou goest ; hovatch iyema, he goes ; inyetch iyema, we 
goj match’m iyema m&-ama, you go; tcha-am’t iveraa, they go ; iyema , I will go; iyema 
t^tchuma, I have gone; iye-em potchuma, I did go; iyemota, l do not go ; iyemotum 
tAtchuma (or: iye-em mo-ot e-ep tdtchuma) or iyemotum potchuma, I have not gone. 

The negative particle mot is incorporated into the verb, and also serves as privative 
particle in the derivation of adjectives: ithperum, strong; hithpermutum, weak; 
t6tchuma and pdtchuma are composed of three pronominal roots: ti, entch, ma; pa, 
entch, ma, and are intended to mark a past tense more or less remote. 

Concerning the modes in which verbs are composed in Mohave, we frequently find a 
syllable hi-, prefixed to the stem of reflective and intransitive verbs, as hilgivak, to 
ride ; hitchibsk, to fall, etc. This particle seems to form verbs equivalent to the me- 
dio-passive verbs iu Greek. 

Of the verbal terminations, -urn is the most frequent, and occurs in tapnyum, to kill; 
tchegovdrum, to laugh ; kotd-akum, to open (a door ;) besides this we find a large num¬ 
ber of verbs ending in -k, or more explicitly in -dk, (akhofik, to smoke,)-ok (hiok, to 
vomit,) -isk, -ilk, -eilk, etc., which often have the accent on the last syllable. 

A large number of verbs is formed directly from nouns, for instance: 
mata, earth ; matahuilk, to dig a hole. 
oya air, breath ; tchoho-ik, to whistle, blow. 
agoaga, deer ; g6go, fox ; ha-ilgudg, to hunt. 

To show more clearly the mode of word-composition iu Mohave, I add a few groups 
of words centering around one root and arranged etymologically. 

AHAT, HAT A, animal, beast: ahiit, ahat-o-olove, horse; bata-ghlal, saddle; hati; 
£nik, bit of horse ; ahat-kagham, spur; hatchora, akhatchora, dog ; makho-htita, bear- 
amo-nio-hat, domestic, tame sheep ; magiffi-kuiniu-hata, hog; in Hualapai akhtiniga, 
alive. 

MATA, AMATA, earth, ground: amata-tchikvara (in Diegeno), meadow, prairie; 
matfik (Mohave), north; matago-opa, hole ; matahuilk, to dig a hole; mathd, mud; 
matara, outside; matana, inside; matuma, inwardly; matmaguilya, skin (as the en¬ 
closing substance). 

IL, thread, in Diegeno, wood; ivu-il, grass, in Hualapai, vila in Tonto ; ilvi, green, light 
green ; avo-ilpo, pole, stick; si-vilya, feathers ; ilya, final syllable in tree names. 
AKHA, water: aha-tchopa, well, water, pump; akhathim, athim, to drink, to drink 
water; akh-mata, squash, pumpkin ; akh kAel, opposite (viz. beyond the water): 
ahayam, wet; khato, island; nu-hiX-vuk, cloud. 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 


562 


HUALAPAI. 

This dialect is closely related to Mohave, since the tribe of the Wallpais, Wallapais, 
or, according to Spanish orthography, Hualapais, have constantly lived in close con¬ 
tiguity aud intercourse with the Mohaves. In the spring of 1874, 580 Hualapais came 
to the Colorado River reservation, where they live together with about 1,540 Mohaves 
and many other Indians. 

The lexicon of this dialect shows many terms in which it differs from Mohave and 
the other dialects. But the prefixes, suffixes, derivative endings, &c., are substantially 
the same, showing many dialectic variations, however. So we observe that the 
Hualapai terminal-aga is in Mohave-aga ; -ega becomes -d or-um ; -oga turns up as 
-auk, u-ugaas-ug; koark, to speak, appears as koauk in Hualapai; harabk as hatabuk, 
five ; mailbd as malu-u, tobacco-pipe. In a good number of terms, H. coincides entirely 
with Tonto, or more closely than with Mohave. 

Being in want of the material requisite to construct a complete grammar of this 
Yuma dialect, hitherto almost unknown, I subjoin the few sentences given by Dr. Loew 
illustrating the inflection of the verb, in which the auxiliary verb I go, miama, is used 
to designate the future tense. 

kvimago, I eat. 

miama kvimago, I shall eat, (viz, “I go eat.”) 

kvimago vam, I have eaten just now. 

kvimago kur6, I have eaten some time ago. 

kvimago ta 6paka, I will not eat. 

kutchu kanaba, What do you want f 

vam in Huai, means now, to-day, and kur6 occurs in Diegeno as okur: distant, far off. 
The negative particle ta is found also in tuya, nothing. 

DIEGENO. 

The Indians of the Yuma stock belonging to this warlike race were called so from 
the vicinity of the seaport San Diego, in Southern California, which will be the ter¬ 
minus of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The correct form for this name would be 
Dieguenos, or San Diegunos, but Diegenos is now generally adopted. Some travelers 
have asserted that the Diegenos were identical with the Comoyei, or Comoyas, inhab¬ 
iting some desert plains between that port and the mouth of the Colorado River, but 
the words taken from both prove that in their language, at least, some difference 
exists. 

Diegeno and Cuchau exhibit many radical discrepancies in the vocabulary, and it is 
not improbable that the languages of the Californian peninsula have in former times 
influenced their stock of words ; and a few expressions are traceable to Sonora sources. 

Diegeno words more frequently end in consonants than those of Tonto, Mohave, and 
Hualapai, but the consonantal combinations and the grouping of the sounds are sub¬ 
stantially the same as in Mohave. The gutturals gli and kh occur very frequently, 
but th of the Mohave, which is pronounced just like the English th, is not found. 
Among two hundred terms I find r occurring only in three, viz, sepir, strong; kitcliur, 
cold , winter ; okur, distant. 

The accent not unfrequently rests on the final syllable of nouns as well as of verbs. 

The parts of the human body assume the prefixed pronoun -i,(“ mine”), but nothing of 
the kind is observed in the degrees of consanguinity. 

Of compound nouns we notice : akhd-kvau, river, viz. “ large-water ;” uma-tetd, mount¬ 
ain, viz. “rock- above ; ” amata-tchikvara, meadow, prairie, viz. “ ground-which-large; ” 
khd-silgb, sea, viz. “ water-salt.” 

Numerals from six to nine are composed with nio-, niu-, and Loew’s numbers differ 
largely from those given by Whipple in the reports. These latter were probably taken 
from a Comoyei Indian. 

No sentences or conjugations are at present available from which to construct para¬ 
digms or syntactic rules for the Diegeno dialect, and from all what may be inferred 
from the vocabularies, it must differ in this respect considerably from the Mohave and 
from Yuma-Cuchau, of which Lieutenant Whipple has given us some phraseology. 

Undoubtedly the several Yuma dialects have borrowed a few words from nations 
speaking various other languages, as it is observed all over America, but in general 
this family kept itself more free from such importations than many other Indian races. 
A faint relationship, not heretofore mentioned by any investigator, exists between 
Yuma and the dialects of the peninsula of California. This connection deserves to be 
followed up as closely as the scanty material which we possess of the peninsular idioms 
will allow, and in this way an ancient immigration of some Yuma tribes into this 
deserted and barren stretch of land may be traced out and proved by linguistic 
research. I will here only point out the following similarities: 

Cochiml: amat, amet, ammet, earth; Mohave: amat; Cuchau, omut. 

Cochiml: ama, amnia, ambayujup; Waikuru: dateuibd, heaven, sky. Mohave: amaya ; 
Cuchau, amrnai. 

Cochiml: maba, upon, above. Mohave: amail, above. 

Laymonic: litsi, to drink; Diegeno, kisi; Cuchan: asi. 


REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS 


563 


I conclude this brief notice on the eleven idioms studied in 1875 by Dr. Oscar Loew 
with the remark that, when his collections of words and sentences shall have appeared 
in print, careful comparative studies of their contents will undoubtedly throw more 
light on the origin and peculiarities of these languages than I have been able to give 
within the short space allotted to me in these pages. From other travelers or from 
residents on the Colorado River aud its tributaries we may soon expect further con¬ 
tributions to the linguistic information gathered up to this day among the interesting 
tribes settled there. Then a new era will dawn upon the elucidation of the linguistic 
treasures still hidden near the lofty canons of that majestic western stream. 


c 

























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U. 8. GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS WEST OF THE IOOtu MERIDIAN. 


ANALYTICAL REPORT 


UPON 


INDIAN DIALECTS SPOKEN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, NE¬ 
VADA. AND ON THE LOWER COLORADO RIVER, &c., &c., 
BASED UPON VOCABULARIES COLLECTED BY THE 
EXPEDITIONS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS 
WEST OF THE 100th MERIDIAN, LIEUT. 

GEO. M. WHEELER, CORPS OF EN¬ 
GINEERS, U. S. ARMY, 

IN CHARGE, 


BY 


ALB. S. GATSOHET; 


BEING 


EXTRACT FROM 


APPENDIX JJ 


OF THE 


ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS FOR 187G. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1876 . 
































































































































































































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